I feel puzzled and uncomfortable in my skin as I watch his back retreat and realize it’s because I don’t want him to go.

I watch him cross the street to his hotel, fighting the urge to call out his name. Maverick briefly glances back at me as he hits the opposite side of the street. He lifts his index finger in the air and circles it, and I realize it means—tomorrow.

Feeling a kick in my heart, I lift mine and do the same move, suddenly excited.

Tomorrow.

NINE

PENNY FOR YOUR THOUGHTS

Reese

Though I spent another sleepless night, dreaming of birds and sweaty male flesh with rippling bird feathers, I’m super motivated the next day. As if I’m being fueled by something other than sleep. Something like . . . anticipation? Excitement? Whatever it is, go, Reese. My whole life I’ve been wanting to change but resisting the effort to do so, maybe. Or maybe fearing who I can become. I’m changing now. It’s always been within reach, but I never wanted to become her until now.

Maybe it’s the penny.

Finding a penny is supposed to be lucky. But if there’s anything that feels luckier, it’s being given a penny as a blank check.

I look at the little copper coin in my palm with a happy prick in my chest.

“What is that?” Brooke asks.

“I found it,” I lie. I’m embarrassed to tell her that I met a guy. She’ll ask about him, who he is, and I don’t know anything, and it’s not like that. Not like that at all.

♥ ♥ ♥

WE MEET UP outside the gym entrance. My heart speeds up when I see him leaning against the gym windows, in dark sweatpants and an electric-blue hoodie, waiting.

He lifts his head, and under his hoodie, I see his eyes light up a little when he sees me.

We smile. And I swear this smile of mine comes straight from my heart.

“Ready?”

That’s all he says.

It’s only one word. One word in that deep, dark, deep, thunderous voice, which activates all my brain receptors and other, more embarrassing ones.

I nod, and when we walk into the gym, our shoulders brush a little and my receptors flood with something warm and hot and uncontrollable.

The sparring ring is busy, so I head to the treadmills and he heads to the mats. Determined to sweat, I walk and run at intervals, and I look at him—the only person out of dozens of sweaty people in here who I actually see—and I can’t get over the fact that he keeps looking every few minutes at me.

When I finish and go gather my things, he comes over. “My first fight is Sunday.” He looks at me with a wry smile and a happy gleam in his eyes. “I’ve got two days to train, I’ll be training with Oz.”

“Okay.”

He looks at my mouth and starts back across the gym.

“Hey, I guess I won’t see you again,” I call out, stopping him. It’s disappointing, but I don’t know why. “Good luck, Maverick.”

Good luck, Avenger. . . .

Our eyes hold for forever and a half. Then Maverick gives me that slow, cocky nod of his, like he did the first day I met him, a nod that seems to mean thank you, and when he smiles at me with those lit-up metallic eyes, I smile and duck my head when my ears get a little hot.

I turn around and walk away, feeling happy for him and unexpectedly sad for me.

♥ ♥ ♥

THERE ARE CHANGES happening in my life. Good ones.

Miles texted recently. He wants to come visit. Maybe he’s been missing me. Taking me for granted and now missing me.

My body is absolutely sore from all the exercise I’ve been doing.

I have more energy and I’m losing a little bit of butt and I’m happy.

But it’s he who wanders into my thoughts tonight, when the house is so quiet I can hear the soft patter of rain on the rooftop as I lie in bed and wonder if I’ll see him again.

I was in private school. There were a total of 460 students enrolled, from middle school to high school. Every year was littered with circles, circles that I never quite fit into. I craved connection, but being shy didn’t help. Being quiet didn’t help. They mistake shy with uninterested or boring. Quiet with having nothing to say, and equating that with having nothing to feel. They saw me, quiet as a lamp, so I was a lamp to them. I never thought of myself as a lamp, maybe the lightbulb. But I never managed to find the switch until now.

I never thought there was another human who could be quiet enough that I feel like he can hear me. I never thought anyone else could help me find the switch but me.

Is that why he’s so intriguing to me? Why he’s a stranger and feels so familiar too? Why he makes me so aware? Of him? And me, my body? My heartbeat, my breath, my . . . sex! He hijacks everything.

It’s like my body’s not mine; it runs away from me. It’s reactive to every glance or smile or the sound of his voice. What’s wrong with me?

Miles and I would work. But Maverick is just so manly, and this is what happens when you don’t give out your V card by senior year, Reese.

It’s like being on a diet and craving what you can’t have. Exactly. This is why I’m so . . . warm lately. Maverick Cage oozes sex, and I’ve lived a sexless life. He’s like the Snickers bar I haven’t had in weeks.

And there were plenty of opportunities for sex before. In junior year. Sophomore year. Even in freshman year, and definitely in senior year. Some guys have wanted to sleep with me, Lex Kent, and Julian Parrish at senior prom. They wanted to sleep with me, on different occasions, of course, but I didn’t want to sleep with them.

They kissed and touched me and I felt a little bit used by them, and I didn’t want to be used.